Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"I think it's highly unlikely that our economy would ever repeat the experience of the Great Depression, when the economy shrank at double-digit rates, and the unemployment rate soared to near 30 percent. Actually, today the economy has yet to shrink for an extended period of time, and the unemployment rate will likely top out still in the single digits. But we could repeat the experience of Japan in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They went through then a multi-year slump. They had problems in the housing market. They had problems in their financial markets, and many are pointing to Japan as perhaps an unfortunate model of what we may be in. Now, other economists disagree. They don't think that we will repeat the experience of Japan. They say that Japan made some key mistakes. For example, they raised interest rates; we've actually seen them cut, and they say that our banking system is much more flexible. Japan had a very cozy relationship between their banking system and the government that resulted in some of the cuts that were necessary not being made. So I think if you are worried about the economy, the proper comparison may be to Japan, but again, many think that that will be an overstated comparison."